'I remember standing here and weeping'

Educators recall marooned school

Educators recall marooned school

May 03, 2008|By Russ Keen, rkeen@aberdeennews.com

After he had spent most of the night bailing water out of his own basement, tears welled in the eyes of Aberdeen Superintendent of Schools Gary Harms on the morning of May 6, 2007, when he saw how much worse other people fared a few blocks from his home. He and C.C. Lee Elementary School Principal Eric Kline trudged through a sodden cemetery east of the school on that Sunday morning and climbed over the graveyard fence - the only way to reach the water-surrounded school. Floodwaters were up to the sidewalk immediately in front of the school, but no water entered the school. That was not the case for houses near C.C. Lee. Standing outside the school, Harms and Kline gazed at houses to the south, where floodwaters were a foot to 2 feet above the base of the homes, Harms recalled as he stood in the exact same spot a couple of weeks ago. “I remember standing here and weeping,” he said. “I will never forget that. I was just overwhelmed. I had never seen a natural disaster like that. Nothing my family went through compared to what what these people had to go through.” C.C. Lee was closed on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday after the flood because vehicles could not get to the school marooned on a temporary island. No other schools closed in Aberdeen. Water had receded enough by Wednesday that C.C. Lee teachers came to work. Earlier in the week, they helped out at other elementary schools. Classes resumed at C.C. Lee on the Thursday following the flood. Kline said he was and still is thunderstruck over how school-district staff and people as a whole helped each other during and after the flood. Even those suffering from personal flood-related losses helped others in the same boat, he said. “I am amazed by the way the community pulled together and got things back together,” Kline said. “The teamwork was very impressive.”